Verses by John Frederick Bryant :: :: University of Virginia Library

Welcome! welcome! season gay,
Yielding sweet employment;
To the hop-grounds haste away,
'Tis there we find enjoyment.
From far and near a chearful crew,
With honest hearts and faces,
Our yearly visit we renew,
All smiling as the Graces.

CHORUS.

Then come, ye hearty lasses fair,
And eke of brown complexion,
With mirth and glee to work repair,
And drive away dejection.

II

See the well-supported vines
All in order growing;
Closely each it's pole entwines,
And richly all are blowing.
See! to us they bend their heads;
Yet, tearing them asunder,
We thus relentless them unwed,
And all their fragrance plunder.

CHORUS.

Come, ye hearty, &c.

III

We to Fate must also bend,
Perhaps in youth and beauty:
Nor think of Death as less our friend;
Like us, he does his duty.
Thou! yonder early-wither'd vine,
Unripe to earth returning;
Our sister's fate , in youth, like thine;
Her kindred yet are mourning.

CHORUS.

But come, ye hearty, &c.

IV

Still let experience make us wise;
Through life let virtue guide us:
Let harmless mirth our spirits rise,
Though riches are deny'd us.
And we, of innocence possess'd,
Will trust no bragging rover;
Nor yield, till marriage makes us blest,
The pledge we can't recover.

CHORUS.

But come, ye hearty, &c.

V

At length, the merry season o'er,
Our fragrant labour ending,
Success encrease our master's store,
Long life and health attend him!
So drinks each hearty lass so fair,
And each of brown complexion;
Then to our homes we all repair,
With cause for no dejection.

CHORUS.

So drinks, &c.

repeated.

Here and there the gatherers meet with a hop-vine that is withered; from which the gentleman desired me to draw a simile, in allusion to the death of one of those lasses, who died since the last season.